IPACS Electronic library

A stability conjecture for discrete systems with unilateral contact and dry friction

We introduce a new notion of stability specially adapted to discrete systems involving unilateral contact and Coulomb friction. This notion deals with perturbations of the forces. In view of the terminology of ordinary differential equations this means perturbations of the right-hand side instead of classical stability notions which deal with perturbations of the initial data. It appears as a consequence of the graph of the nonregularized Coulomb's friction law. In this context we give a conjecture that the present paper aims at justifying.